Viewing humans as seeking to promote their own personal interests in every circumstance is a concept that took shape under the influence of the English philosopher Thomas Hobbes, who presents the individual as a basically selfish being. The notion was adopted by a number of contemporary thinkers.1 Specialists in human sciences have termed this “universal selfishness,” or “psychological selfishness,” the theory that postulates not only that selfishness exists, which no one doubts, but that it motivates all of our actions. Even if we want others to be happy, it would only be viewed as a roundabout way to “maximize” our own interests. Although no one denies the fact that personal interest can be one of the reasons we help others, the theory of universal selfishness goes far beyond that by asserting that personal interest is the only reason.
David Hume, one of Hobbes’ main opponents, was not kindly disposed toward the proponents of universal selfishness, and thought this point of view stemmed from “the most careless and precipitate examination.”2 He was more inclined to observe human behavior empirically than to construct moral theories. Speaking about the thinkers of his time, he remarked, “It is full time they should attempt a like reformation in all moral disquisitions; and reject every system of ethics, however subtle or ingenious, which is not founded on fact and observation.” For him, denying the existence of altruism went against common sense:
The most obvious objection to the selfish hypothesis is, that, as it is contrary to common feeling and our most unprejudiced notions, there is required the highest stretch of philosophy to establish so extraordinary a paradox. To the most careless observer there appear to be such dispositions as benevolence and generosity; such affections as love, friendship, compassion, gratitude.3
Nonetheless, when confronted with the numerous examples of altruism which, like us, they witness in their daily lives, the supporters of universal selfishness set to work proposing explanations that often defy common sense. In other cases, they simply take for granted that genuine altruism can’t exist. Concerning a man who rushed out of his car and plunged unhesitatingly into freezing water to save someone from drowning, the American sociobiologist Robert Trivers asserts boldly, without offering any evidence whatsoever, that without a selfish motive “it is clear that the rescuer should not bother to save the drowning man.”4
This theory is problematic because it reflects a narrow and reductive vision of human motivations. The philosopher Joel Feinberg notes:
If the arguments for psychological egoism consisted for the most part of carefully acquired empirical evidence (well-documented reports of controlled experiments, surveys, interviews, laboratory data, and so on), then the critical philosopher would have no business carping at them. After all, since psychological egoism purports to be a scientific theory of human motive it is the concern of the experimental psychologist, not the philosopher, to accept or reject it. But as a matter of fact, empirical evidence of the required sort is seldom presented in support of psychological egoism.… It is usually the “armchair scientist” who holds the theory of universal selfishness, and his usual arguments are either based simply on his “impressions” or are largely of the non-empirical sort.5
On the philosophical level, the main arguments advanced by proponents of universal selfishness are the following: we help others because in the end we draw satisfaction from doing so; whatever we do, we can desire only one thing—our own well-being—which is in itself a selfish motivation; since everything we do freely is the expression of our will and our desires, our actions are consequently selfish; or, conversely, a heroic deed is not really altruistic because its agent is acting impulsively and doesn’t really make a choice.
The theory of universal selfishness shows its weakness when it sets out to explain by itself alone all of human behavior. It is selfish to refuse to give a plum to a child (you want to keep it for yourself), and it is selfish to give it to the child (you are doing so in order to have a good conscience or in order to put an end to the child’s insistent demands, which are exasperating you). Without experimentally verifying the real motivation of the person, one could advance, just as arbitrarily, the opposite hypothesis: it is just as altruistic to give a plum to a child (you know the child likes plums) as it is to refuse it (you know that plums make the child sick to his or her stomach).
Applying the word “selfish” to all behavior without exception leads to absurd interpretations of situations: the soldier who throws himself onto a grenade in order to keep his companions from being killed would be just as selfish as the one who pushes his comrade onto the grenade to save his skin. Being selfish would thus become synonymous with existing and breathing. As Abraham Maslow cautions, “It is tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail.”6
A scientific hypothesis must not only be able to be put to the test by experimental verification, but it must also present the possibility of being refuted by facts. If a theory is formulated in such a way that it is always verified, whatever the facts observed, it does not advance the state of knowledge. A theory that is in principle unfalsifiable is not scientific; it is an ideology.
People often say, “I’ve helped others a lot, but I’ve drawn immense satisfaction from doing so. They are the ones I have to thank.” They speak of the ‘warm glow’ which accompanies the satisfaction born from accomplishing acts of kindness.
But such a hypothesis could not be applied to all altruistic behavior. When a fireman rushes into a house on fire to get someone out, it is quite absurd to imagine him thinking, “OK, I’m going into the blaze. I’ll feel so good afterwards!”
As the psychologist Alfie Kohn emphasizes, “The egoist must do more than point to the smile on the face of the rescuer if she means to show that the rescuer had that pleasant afterglow in mind.”7
What’s more, the fact of feeling satisfaction when accomplishing an altruistic action does not make the action selfish, since the desire for that satisfaction does not constitute its main motivation. If you go for a hike in the mountains to bring provisions to a friend who is stuck in a small cabin, the walk is indeed good for your health and you appreciate its benefits, but wouldn’t it be specious to argue that it’s because the walk does you good, bodily, that you went to help your friend?
Satisfaction is born from true altruism, not from calculating selfishness. Herbert Spencer, a nineteenth-century English philosopher and sociologist, remarked, “This increase of personal benefit achieved by benefiting others, is but partially achieved where a selfish motive prompts the seemingly unselfish act: it is fully achieved only where the act is really unselfish.”8 In short, those who call any altruistic action that brings an advantage to the one who accomplishes it selfish are confusing primary with secondary effects.
One can also argue that altruistic actions are not always accompanied by pleasant emotions. Rescues carried out in emergencies and those that consist of protecting victims of persecution are often preceded or accompanied by more or less intense moments of fear on the part of the rescuer. During World War II, Irene Gut Opdyke risked her life many times to save Jews threatened with death in Poland. She clearly explains the difference between the emotions felt in the heat of the moment and the feeling of fulfillment experienced when she recalls the deeds. Was she aware of the nobility of her actions? “I did not realize then,” she says, “but the older I get, the more I feel I am very rich. I would not change anything. It’s a wonderful feeling to know that today many people are alive and some of them married and have their children, and that their children will have children because I did have the courage and the strength.”9 The fact of retrospectively appreciating the rightness of an action only adds to its admirable character; it takes nothing away from its altruism.
There is a variant to the theory of universal selfishness: the theory called psychological hedonism, the constant search for pleasure, which is described in the writings of the English philosopher John Stuart Mill.10 It asserts that, “We are selfish because the only thing we really want is to have pleasant experiences, to prolong them, and to avoid or curtail unpleasant experiences.” According to the theory of psychological hedonism, we are altruistic only to the extent that it brings us pleasure, and we would avoid being so if it allowed us to avoid any kind of unpleasantness. But this argument doesn’t make much sense.11 A runner who reaches the finish line, a builder who completes a house, a painter who finishes a painting, a person who has just finished washing the laundry, all take pleasure from having brought their work to completion. But we do laundry in order to have clean clothes, not to feel the satisfaction of having “done the laundry.” Similarly, the simple fact that the achieving of another person’s benefit gives us satisfaction does not imply that our motivation is selfish, since it is for the good of the other and not for our own satisfaction that we have acted.
Further, as Feinberg emphasizes, the fact that we felt satisfaction upon completing an altruistic action presupposes that we are naturally inclined to favor the other’s happiness. If we were completely indifferent to others’ fates, why would we feel pleasure in taking care of them?12
We should not confuse “self-love” or, to be more precise, “wanting one’s own well-being” with selfishness. As the philosopher Ronald Milo explains, self-love leads to wishing for one’s own welfare, while selfish love leads to wanting only that. Joseph Butler, the eighteenth-century English philosopher and theologian, stressed the plurality of our concerns as well as the compatibility of wanting one’s own welfare with also wanting that of others. He defends an “enlightened love of self” by which one of the secondary effects of altruism can be a contribution to the realization of our own happiness—without that making our initial motivation selfish. What’s more, there are actions that contribute to our own well-being—breathing, walking, sleeping—that are neither selfish nor altruistic.
If the egoist had a better understanding of the mechanisms of happiness and suffering, he would accomplish his own well-being by showing kindness to others. Jean-Jacques Rousseau noted, “I know and I feel that doing good is the truest happiness that the human heart can taste.”
According to this argument, we are selfish because we act out of our own desires: when we act freely, in the end we do only what we want; consequently we are selfish. In other words, in order to be altruistic, an action should not have been desired by the agent who performs it, which is absurd. Norman Brown, a philosopher at Cambridge University, refutes this argument, explaining that it “amounts simply to saying that man is motivated by his own desires, a statement which is irredeemably trivial; for it is not praiseworthy but logically impossible to be motivated by someone else’s desire, seeing that a desire just is the agent’s tendency towards action.”
What’s more, if we acted for the other solely in order to satisfy our immediate desire to help, it would be enough to distract ourselves and to make this desire that bothers us go away. But that is not the case: as soon as our attention returns to those who need help, the desire to come to their aid re-arises and is maintained so long as we haven’t done something useful for that person.
The difference between altruism and selfishness does not stem from the fact that I want something, but from the nature of my desire, which can be benevolent, malevolent, or neutral. It is our motivation, the ultimate goal we pursue, that colors our actions by determining their altruistic or selfish nature. I can wish for another’s welfare, just as I can desire my own. Selfishness does not consist simply of desiring something, but of satisfying desires centered exclusively on personal interests, without taking into account others’ interests. We are far from being able to control the development of external events, but, whatever the circumstances may be, we can always examine our intentions and adopt an altruistic attitude.
Further, it is possible, in most cases, to infuse altruism into activities that are seemingly ethically neutral. One can, for example, want to live a long time with good health in order to better devote oneself to the twofold accomplishment of one’s own happiness and that of others. If this vision remains constantly present in the heart of our thoughts, whatever we do, our mind will always remain imprinted with kindness. There is a Buddhist practice that aims at turning ordinary activities into ways of training the altruistic mind. When opening a door, for instance, one thinks, “May the door of happiness be opened to all beings,” and when closing a door, “May the door of suffering be closed for all beings.” When lighting a fire, one thinks, “May the fire of wisdom be lit in my and everyone’s mind and burn away the toxins of hatred, greed and arrogance,” and so forth.
In the case of intrepid rescuers, proponents of universal selfishness have another argument up their sleeves. Consider the explanation offered by many ordinary heroes after helping others, often at the risk of their own lives: “I didn’t have a choice.” Margot, a woman who had taken considerable risks to protect Jews persecuted by the Nazis, explained it this way to Kristen Monroe: “Suppose somebody drowns. If you stop to think, ‘Shall I? Shall I not? Eeny, meeny, miney, mo.’ You can’t do that. You either help or you don’t. You don’t walk away. You don’t walk away from somebody who needs real help.”13
Partisans of universal selfishness conclude from this that one cannot describe automatic behavior as altruistic, since it is not preceded by an intention. But the fact of having acted unhesitatingly does not mean one had no choice, or that no intention presided over the action. It simply means that the choice was so clear that it led to immediate action.
Daniel Batson observes, “You may afterward report—as do many who rush into burning buildings or dive into dangerous waters—that you didn’t think before you acted. In spite of this report, it seems likely that you—and they—did think. Otherwise, impulsive helping responses would not be as adaptive as they are.… It seems more accurate to say that you—and they—may not have thought carefully, but you did think. Your response was still goal directed.”14
When we are faced with the need to make a decision in an unexpected situation that’s evolving very quickly and doesn’t allow for any hesitations, our behavior is the expression of our inner state. What seems like instinctive behavior is actually the natural manifestation of a way of being acquired over time.
Joseph Butler suggested a reductio ad absurdum: if it were true that humans are purely selfish, then it follows that they are not at all concerned about other people. If that were the case, they would never wish for anything for other people, either good or bad, since these two desires, although opposite, both imply that one is interested in the other’s fate, positively or negatively. A complete egoist could harm another or do good for the sake of his own self-interests, but he should not sacrifice his interests for any motivation whatsoever. If some people risk their lives to harm others out of hatred, why would they not be able to so do out of altruism?
All morality is based on taking into consideration what is fair and desirable for others. A radical egoist regards others only as a means to arrive at his own ends. So he can’t have any sincere consideration for their lot. In an “everyone for himself” world, there could be no moral sense, only at most contractual agreements established between egoists to limit the damages they risk inflicting on each other.
If selfishness were really the sole component of all our motivations, why would we experience the slightest feeling of surprise and indignation when we think of others’ misdeeds? Why would we rise up against people who cheat others or against the captain who leaves his sinking ship before evacuating the passengers? We would regard such actions as perfectly normal.
Actually, even the most selfish people sometimes praise the kind or generous actions carried out by others. By doing so, they implicitly recognize the possibility of altruism in others. But in order to recognize it in others, one has to spot the possibility in oneself. We cannot assign feelings to others that are completely unknown to us.
Even the most inveterate egoist will think it normal to be treated fairly and will be indignant if made the victim of injustice. But the egoist cannot demand fair treatment without implicitly recognizing the value of fairness in itself. If that is the case, the egoist must also accept his responsibility to be fair to others, which means caring for others.
A growing number of researchers, including the psychologist Jonathan Haidt, have verified experimentally that moral sense is innate in humans. According to Haidt, it turns out that, in many situations, we sense first in an instinctive, or intuitive, way whether or not a certain kind of behavior is acceptable, and then a posteriori we justify our choices by reasoning.15
In brief, according to Norman Brown, “Psychological egoism is, I suppose, regarded by most philosophers as one of the more simple-minded fallacies in the history of philosophy, and dangerous and seductive too, contriving as it does to combine cynicism about human ideals and a vague sense of scientific method, both of which make the ordinary reader feel sophisticated, with conceptual confusion, which he cannot resist.”
Nothing in the realm of lived experience, of sociological studies, or of scientific experimentation allows us to pass from questioning the existence of selfishness to dogmatically asserting that all our actions without exception are motivated by selfishness. The idea of universal selfishness seems to rest more on an intellectual a priori than on knowledge acquired by investigation into human behavior.
Acknowledging that altruism and kindness are part of human nature encourages the full expression of this potential in our thoughts and actions. By presupposing a natural egoism, we seek to justify some of our antisocial behavior, and undermine any desire to remedy our defects. How many times do we hear it said about selfishness: “In any case, it’s human nature”? Jerome Kagan, a Harvard professor, describes North Americans’ tendency to accept the idea that personal self-interest takes precedence over all other considerations in this way:
Rather than acknowledge that the structure and philosophy of our society invite each of us to accept self-interest as the first rule, many Americans find it more attractive to believe that this mood, along with jealousy, hatred, violence, and incest, is the inevitable remnant of our animal heritage and so we must learn to accept it.16
Our opinion about the existence of real altruism is not just a theoretical question, since it can considerably influence our way of thinking and acting. As Martin Luther King Jr. said, “Every man must decide whether he will walk in the light of creative altruism or in the darkness of destructive selfishness.”
The Dalai Lama often says that love is more natural than hatred, altruism more natural than egoism, since from birth to death we all need, in order to survive, to give and receive love to accomplish both our own welfare and others’. In general, he adds, we feel “good” when we show kindness to others, and “bad” when we harm others. We prefer the company of kind people; even animals move away from someone who is angry, brutal, or unpredictable. According to him, the relationship between kindness and well-being can be explained by the fact that the human being is a “social animal” who depends closely on the mutual aid and kindness from which we will benefit and which we in turn will show to others.
How, in that case, can we explain why humanity is subject to so many conflicts and so much violence? We can understand kindness as the expression of a human being’s state of mental equilibrium, and violence as disequilibrium. Hatred is a deviance that causes suffering for both the one who is hated and the one who hates. When one follows a mountain path, it doesn’t take much to make a wrong move and fall down the slope. When we lose our reference points and deviate from our state of equilibrium, anything becomes possible.
It is clear, then, that we must learn to master our malevolent thoughts as soon as they arise in our minds, just as we must put out a fire at its first flames, before the entire forest catches fire. Without this vigilance and this control, it is all too easy for us to stray far from our potential for kindness.
Many exceptional people have stressed the fact that, even in unfavorable circumstances, it is almost always possible to call on the good side of human nature, so that it manifests in behavior. Nelson Mandela, in particular, showed how such an attitude could be put to the service of a social or political cause:
I always knew that deep down in every human heart, there is mercy and generosity. No one is born hating another person because of the color of his skin, or his background, or his religion. People must learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love, for love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite. Even in the grimmest times in prison when my comrades and I were pushed to our limits, I would see a glimmer of humanity in one of the guards, perhaps just for a second, but it was enough to reassure me and keep me going.… [Human] goodness is a flame that can be hidden but never extinguished.17
The Dalai Lama often reminds us that humans, unlike animals, are the only species capable of doing immense good or bad to their fellows. How can we act in such a way that it’s the good side of human nature that gains the upper hand? We can find an inspiration in these words attributed to an old Cherokee giving advice to his grandson: “A fight is going on inside me,” he said to the boy. “It is a terrible fight between two wolves. One is evil—he is hatred, anger, greed, envy, arrogance, grudge, resentment, miserliness, and cowardliness. The other is good—he is happiness, joy, serenity, love, kindness, compassion, hope, humility, generosity, truthfulness, and confidence. They are also fighting inside you and inside every other person, too.” The child thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather, “Which wolf will win?” The old Cherokee simply replied, “The one you feed.”